From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Tue May 8 17:35:30 2012 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [69.147.83.52]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B261C106566C for ; Tue, 8 May 2012 17:35:30 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from eric@shadowsun.net) Received: from mail.atlantawebhost.com (dns1.atlantawebhost.com [66.223.40.39]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 628D58FC12 for ; Tue, 8 May 2012 17:35:30 +0000 (UTC) Received: (qmail 10174 invoked from network); 8 May 2012 13:35:29 -0400 Received: from c-71-192-38-198.hsd1.ma.comcast.net (HELO ?192.168.1.8?) (71.192.38.198) by mail.atlantawebhost.com with SMTP; 8 May 2012 13:35:29 -0400 Message-ID: <4FA95960.7090908@shadowsun.net> Date: Tue, 08 May 2012 13:35:28 -0400 From: Eric McCorkle User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; FreeBSD amd64; rv:12.0) Gecko/20120507 Thunderbird/12.0.1 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Enigmail-Version: 1.5pre Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="------------070404040305050203020901" X-Content-Filtered-By: Mailman/MimeDel 2.1.5 Subject: GSoC Project: EFI on amd64/i386 X-BeenThere: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Technical Discussions relating to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 08 May 2012 17:35:30 -0000 This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------070404040305050203020901 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Hello everyone, I'm going to be working on EFI boot support on the amd64/i386 platforms as a GSoC project. The idea is to allow booting from EFI (as opposed to legacy BIOS) on these platforms, so that FreeBSD can continue to support a wide range of hardware as EFI begins to replace BIOS. I'd also like to start a discussion on the matter, since it seems there are several ways that this could be done. Also, I know Rui Paulo was working on this a while back. If anyone knows the approach he was taking, that would be helpful. The way IA-64 handles booting might also be helpful. Here are some specific points to be decided: * An EFI boot service could potentially function similarly to [zfs]loader. Alternatively, it could function like gpt[zfs]boot, though this might require modifying loader(8) since EFI boot services run in protected/long mode, and have different system information table formats. * How much of what EFI provides do we want to use? There are advantages and disadvantages both ways. * How much of the kernel needs to be changed to boot/run from an EFI boot? * It seems possible to support booting from legacy BIOS as well as EFI (install a protective MBR, and gpt[zfs]boot on a FreeBSD boot partition, install the EFI boot loader in a way that the EFI firmware will find it and load it, and the system itself on another partition). Is it worth trying to do this? Feel free to chime in with your opinions on these matters. - -- Eric McCorkle Computer Science Ph.D Student eric@shadowsun.net -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.19 (FreeBSD) iQIcBAEBAgAGBQJPqVlgAAoJENSCzbQ+koZ7CpYP/27NtM6Vz1069OLjV/+BRUt0 yxW4t8Tl5QXmMUroNAwhnABMKnFG7HAkYxa0twMLudalQVRxCPhyY3bANHQQt6Od mFWDdeeumNLjsOScT577zkFm7mgAdYzP4hO2C5BaxS6ZfWt5WwFm1WGUbY6GuybA jB3dLDLGWyprlxwTJz2cfhrpbVzRfysXzfbccpSVVkYJp9/UcrCh2bpmh7N0S1HC rRCzj8D1yafbjbyKEjOuVnIZMCoh/KFLbsuA2E0GUk2jfyhZKsX8wfFGKZ+53Dle pP8Hks8pOsaQcxy7vwj9Qf22TKnSrCNvUF/m3oNXi2W1DD4byOiNr6VRD2Zo1Ctw hq4mUAb4pe8P8bySjPrLrZWdk6OQuluvcB7g+8kL12EZEWG0QkVDrj7+noOKicqX ntxPAPEMAFt2imzOcrhmNl88qAb+13WDWFHusU+/pxFYJK9rpwCZN9f9gWh5eiW9 HTUiFapKgPkAW5xqU2Fn+LcT1ViBsBO0XHbuvXTVsJJj331OY+56ZgxnszFPhosV l1At9JBcOGJA5+Yq9BaIMv8kN9S617KW9egLEDL1RyhWzdsvpPzILO5moKARLGXo M+3B1PRUMw7a0zHI6mGa7i6ogP5f85Jp/vKlvYK688H9v68rx8sRQs5k9hMkB1JY YxOb+R6NM6AoEMsQ4loE =80fO -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --------------070404040305050203020901--